Vanderbilt-Duke postgame quotes

March 20, 2012

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SECOND ROUND GAME
#2 Duke 96 vs. #7 Vanderbilt 80
March 20, 2012

VANDERBILT

HEAD COACH Melanie Balcomb
Opening statement…
“I did not see that coming. I will tell you just what I told our team, we were very prepared, very focused, I thought we were ready to play. We had great practices, a great shoot-around and defensively we did not come out ready. We didn’t take anything away from them, we didn’t dictate, and we didn’t force turnovers. They shot the lights out. From that point on they had the confidence and it never wavered. They shot great all night and they were the aggressor and we didn’t turn it up. That is a very good basketball team I am was just really surprised by the way that we started the game, or lack thereof.”

On not getting the defensive stops needed…
“They have a lot of kids that can score. All five kids that got double figures tonight average double figures. Yeah some of them, (Haley) Peters doubled hers, but they have the ability to do that. It was like the game when we played Tennessee when we all had our best game defensively, we were all on and scored 90 points, they just did that to us. They are a good offensive team and when it all clicks like that they all have the ability to score and they can all shoot the ball. The tough thing was that we were scoring with them but it becomes debilitating when you can’t get stops that we count on all season. I think at halftime we forced one or two turnovers and ended up with 13. We gave up eight offensive rebounds and they shot 67 percent. So anything that they missed they got the offensive rebound. It didn’t matter what defense we were in, we just didn’t do a god job of executing the game plan. One person was doing one thing and someone else was doing something else. It did look harder than it is. We had the deer in the headlights look, which I just didn’t think we would have at home because these kids don’t have that experience and we are very young.”

On her team not playing fearless…
“They missed that. I thought we played fearless down the stretch when we were rotating. We were just frozen at times. When we were supposed to trap the ball screens we rotated but were late. We just looked frozen. You saw us not anticipating like we usually do defensively and I think that’s caused by fear.”On what she told her team when the game Duke started to pull away…”Basically that they all had to communicate and they all needed to be on the same page. That’s what I had the toughest time getting them to do today, and be more aggressive. I know that we scored a lot of points too, but they had a lot of deflections. They had a hand wherever the ball was…just to be aggressive on the ball more. We call that dictating and forcing them to try to turn the ball over. We did it the last six minutes, we trapped and rotated, but getting them to do that and do that aggressive was difficult. I don’t know why. You feel like you are down 20 and you have to do something different to try to shorten that gap. You can’t just try to match up and keep people in front. You have to do more. I thought the last six minutes we had the heart and hustle that we needed for forty minutes to beat a number two seed. I don’t care where the game is played. They played very, very well.”

On if her team overachieved this season…
“I feel really good about the season. I have a very young team. It’s the youngest team that I have had. We started out with 10 players and a walk-on and then had a torn ACL. I try not to talk about injuries, but we have had a lot of them throughout the season. We managed to get through a lot of adversity and I am proud of where we are at. We are the best team that I have put on the floor in March and that is our goal.”

VANDERBILT STUDENT-ATHLETES
Elan Brown, junior guard/forward
On what happened on defense…
“Just going off what Christina said, they just picked up their defensive intensity and we were unable to match it. We didn’t come out focused and we just weren’t communicating not taking anything away from them. We just let them do whatever they wanted.”

On the frustration of having this happen at home…
“It is frustrating but we can’t get it back so we are looking to move forward now and try not to focus on what just happened. Move forward and make corrections so that it won’t happen again.”

Christina Foggie, sophomore guard
On Haley Peters’ shooting catching the team off guard…
“I don’t think it caught us off guard. We knew what she could do, she could knock down the shots. Like Coach said we didn’t really dictate or be aggressive on defense and she was getting a lot of wide open looks and she was knocking them down.”

On the game being too fast…
“No. I think it was just a matter of getting stops and that’s one thing we did not do. I think that was the difference.”

On comeback from the half time deficit…
“No we have come back plenty from that much. We definitely have a pride in ourselves and we want to come back and it’s our home court. There’s no thinking that we are out of the game. We had to come out and get stops and we didn’t right away. We kind of waited too long to get stops and come back a little bit and at that point it was too late.”

On looking forward what can be taken from the season and tonight…
“Looking back on the season, we did do a lot of good things and it’s disappointing that it had to end this way. It’s going to leave a bad taste in our mouths and being a young team we have a lot learn from and a lot to grow from. Being a young team we have a lot of people coming back.

“Be relentless, fight back and things like that. Defense is important and you win games with defense. I think that is one thing we have to focus on.”

On defending three or four good shooters…
“Honestly we have seen a few shooters this year. I was just a matter of getting our post players out, our guards out, just communication and we kind of lacked that. It should not have been as hard as it looked out there.”

DUKE

HEAD COACH JOANNE P. McCALLIE
Opening Statement…
“It was just a great game for our team. I’m very proud of our team’s effort, especially the way we came out in the first half just sharing the basketball offensively and playing some terrific defense. I don’t think we played as good defense in the second half, but certainly the first half I think we dictated a lot of things on the floor. I thought Chelsea’s game was so mature in terms of decision-making and what she created on the floor was outstanding. I thought Elizabeth was tough and strong getting rebounds for us and posting up. Haley was tremendous leader for us on the floor relative to finding open spots, being aggressive and certainly knocking down shots, but the defense she played and the rebounds she got and that type of thing. It was good game for us, were excited about that and very excited to take Chelsea back to California. That means a lot to us and we appreciate the host site. Its been a great site.”

On Chelsea Gray…
“I just think she is one of the best guards in the country. I think she loves to compete and when she plays a good game like she did the other night I think she looks for the natural next [move]. I loved her eyes, they were up and she was finding her teammates to make the easiest pass possible.”

On motivation from losing in the ACC Tournament…
“We were hurt pretty bad by that, no doubt about it. I think a big key is everyone taking ownership for it. You don’t learn something just because you lose, people have to step up and speak about it and we have some good leadership. This is a growing team, they are a young team and they are learning things. We will take some things away from this game. We didn’t play good defense the second half and I think that’s good in the sense we can take something away from this game going on to the next.”

On allowing 17 offensive rebounds…
“I think four of them came in the first two minutes. We were not alert early in the game and that’s never something you want to do. That’s why you can’t get – I’ll use the word seduced – you can’t get seduced by offense. We’ll be looking at the rebounding of this game and we’ll be looking at some things in the second half defensively. You really have to put two halves together. The first half was a great half but if you are going to be at the highest level and have a special team, you have to play the full 40 [minutes].”

On the play of Haley Peters…
“You can’t leave Haley alone. She has shot it a million times in the gym. She is in the gym extra and works extremely hard. She is just one of those dream players in the sense of the work ethic and the talent. You can’t leave her. She takes offense to that, she likes to be guarded. She’s done this before; Maryland at home comes to mind.”

On playing in the heat of Memorial Gym…
“We talked about it, but what are you going to do? We can’t take charge of these things so who cares. When you play in the summer, what do you do? You run up and down and it’s hot and humid but that’s just life. I really think this team did a good job performing.”

On playing against St. Johns in the Regional…
“I don’t know a lot about them from just seeing them directly. I know they are extremely well coached and a terrific team.”

DUKE STUDENT-ATHLETES
Haley Peters, sophomore guard/forward
On her shooting and seeing the court…
“I think (Elizabeth Williams) attracts a lot of attention all the time because of what she’s done this season and a lot of my teammates were doubling on the penetration and stuff like that, so we were doing a great job at moving the ball, passing it, and not taking too many dribbles. I happened to be on the open end of it a lot of times and stepping into some pretty open shots, and felt comfortable today.”

On whether the game felt easy or not with the early lead…
“No, I don’t think any time you play a team as talented as they are that it’s easy. We did a lot of good things on the offensive end moving the ball and not falling in love with the dribble or anything like that, and continued to made good stops through the whole stretch. We went through a stretch at the beginning of the game where we were trading baskets for a while and that stopped, we started to get stopped, and that’s never easy against a team that’s as talented as they are. So I think it’s something that we worked for.”

Elizabeth Williams, freshman center
On team’s shooting effort tonight…
“It felt great. I think it started with our defense. We got a lot of stops and got some transition buckets and that’s when you notice a lot of the assists. Haley (Peters) was hitting open shots, so, a lot of the shots we took were good shots and they weren’t too difficult. I think that’s why we were able to shoot so well.”

On guarding Vanderbilt’s Stephanie Holzer
“I think initially I missed a couple of box-outs, especially in that first stretch where they got a sequence of offensive rebounds. After that, I really focused on…Coach P. told me to focus on positioning, just being in the right spots on offense and defense. So that’s what I tried to do and put a body on her.

On going to the Sweet 16…
“It’s awesome. It’s really exciting. I love to be doing it with this team. We’ve just been talking about it a lot, and where we want to go. It’s awesome. I’m just looking forward to it.”

Chelsea Gray, sophomore guard
On a 12-assist performance…
“My teammates were doing a great job moving without the basketball so it was in the flow of our offense. They were just getting to open spots and knocking them down so I was really proud how they were moving without the ball.”

On returning home for the next round…
“I’m excited and I started asking for tickets. I’m just really excited. I love this team and we are taking it one game at a time so I’m excited to go home and play.”